#yellow circle

tsap :)

It is not yet time for Act 2. My children will be brought to Carcosa when their mortal skin sheds, but it is not that time. Though…it looked like it, not so long ago. When the sky was rent violet and the blood of the eaters powered machines beyond imagination, it looked so close to that time. When the worm was crowned in many crowns and tasted divinity, when the clione spent her miracle, I could taste the second act. I could taste truth.

The wardens decided it was not, and thus it was not. Those who cling to such authority say the world works just so, and it does because they have created it just so. I cannot fault them for consistency, at least in this.

In the world they built, under their watchful eye, they still almost lost everything. What a privilege to be able to erase one’s mistakes. To act as though nothing happened. But it did, and that knowledge will eat them from the inside out, for what little succor that will bring you.

As an act of love, I bring you a reminder. When the Eye fails you, when the wardens flee their prison, look to each other. Look to the circle of stars. The fish and the worm have more in common with each other than they with the diver. The whale falls. Build a throne in its ribcage.

I'm trying my best not to follow. It's not as hard as I thought, in some respects. Mainly because the direction of the pull keeps seeming to change. I dream of sewing intricate gowns, painting beautiful faces, screwing together more and more and more flats. Designing backdrops, helping others position sets.

I think in some ways the fractures are helping keep me away from any one aspect. But maybe it's simply pulling me deeper no matter which way I step.

I'm working on the cage. My hands want to build today. It's better than more flats.

Wardens must be reminded, from time to time, that their position is only maintained by their grip on the keys.

Does your grip wane? Do your fingers bleed?

My head is full of lines. My head is full of lines.

Why not let these actors play theirs?

OCULUS Beta Fork 0.4.43

Welcome, DIR.WALKER

The following text is interpreted by OPN lowercase OCULUS from raw visual and audio data from surveillance equipment at OPN site VA, REDACTED SAFEHOUSE. Incorrect inferences may occur.

Trust, but verify.

[OPN SAFEHOUSE, VIRGINIA, UNDISCLOSED LOCATION. Several Special Protection Subjects loitering in common area. Office staff interspersed. Three (3) Office staff closer to security camera. (ID: SECURITY DIRECTOR KNIGHT, 89% certainty) standing by second SUBJECT (ID: MS COLD, 85% certainty). Third SUBJECT (ID: AGENT HALTER, 99% certainty) situated by computer bank, ]

[MS COLD] So what is this place? 

[SECURITY DIRECTOR KNIGHT] The Office set up these bunkers during the Cold War. Fear of mundane dangers like nuclear weapons, but the Office also thought the Russians had extranormal superweapons. Places like this were fully equipped with onsite apotropaic systems, survival equipment, weapons stockpiles, lines to other normality preservation agencies across the globe… 

[MS COLD] Sounds like your summer home. 

[SECURITY DIRECTOR KNIGHT] What I wouldn’t give. What are you doing here, anyway? Aren’t Zetans immune to this kind of thing?

[MS COLD] Well, yeah, but I figure if I go along with it I can keep people safe...

[SECURITY DIRECTOR KNIGHT is silent.] 

[MS COLD] And someone may have promised I could understudy Cassilda. 

[SECURITY DIRECTOR KNIGHT] Can of worms, Cold. 

[MS COLD] That’s what Norm said. He’s really fixated on the worm thing. 

[SECURITY DIRECTOR KNIGHT] Hold that thought. Gonna check the side stage doors. 

[MS COLD] The what? 

[SECURITY DIRECTOR KNIGHT] Side doors. 

[MS COLD] Right. 

[SECURITY DIRECTOR KNIGHT moves to check side doors. MS COLD walks over to norm.] 

[MS COLD] How are you feeling? 

[AGENT HALTER] I got some sleep, which is nice. How are you holding up?

[MS COLD] Mostly running on coffee. Tech week’s rough.

[AGENT HALTER] Ehh. Be careful. I don't want to lose you to the cast.

[MS COLD] It has a cost? 

[AGENT HALTER] …yeah. It has a cost. About that. I was thinking about what happened when we talked to Yth’Wa. 

Yth’Wa will tell you the Circle can regrow you, or give you what you desire. Maybe that’s true, but I promise you that the king has an ulterior motive. 

I didn’t want that for you, or anyone. I always suggest that people don’t undergo stuff like that. I guess an unexamined bias on my part. A dedication to the status quo. Insert my job description. It didn’t really occur to me that you might….have more reason to be interested in that than most people. 

[MS COLD] No, obviously, I get that the nightmare being from beyond reality wouldn’t be transing my gender out of the goodness of his heart, Norm. I’ve seen Yth’wa’s file, now I’ve seen her; I’m not stupid!

My pills are nearly seventy bucks a month. Laser was a lump sum of almost 4000$. Electrolysis is 129$ an hour, so I try and get that in when I can. Surgeries, well, I’m looking at lowball 52k, and probably more.

I spend every day fighting to be who I am, because I’ve been told all my life that this is the option. There are already all kinds of risks; blood clots, heart palpitations, surgeons who won’t even look at me twice because I’m too fat for them! And that’s not even mentioning people wanting to legislate me out of existence, if they don’t just straight up want to kill me! It’s expensive, and scary, and agonizingly slow to be trans! Every single day it weighs on my goddamn brain that I could just…stop this all. I could just give up on being who I am and go back to pretending! Hell, there’s people that make bank off of that! But I keep soldiering on, walking the slow road because “well, that’s all there is!” Because I have to be Jenny or I'll fucking die!

[MS COLD] I have a hell of a good “reason” to be interested! I just would have liked to know what the risks for this would have been before I dedicated myself to the slow way.

I was…am angry not because I want magic bottom surgery with a side of face tentacles, but because no one ever told me that it was even an option! Did they think I was stupid? That I’d just dunk myself in the nearest tide pool and call it done?

How am I supposed to just...find out that my informed consent has been manufactured this whole time and be ok with that?? That none of the people who claim to give a shit about me even thought to mention “hey, Jenny, there’s another way, but it has a lot of risks and downsides” when they seen me crying over a broken epilator, face down on the bed because I had to write fucking [OUTDATED NOMENCLATURE DETECTED; PURGING AS PER PROTOCOL] on the millionth medical form, when I had to shell out to get my skin burned once a month in the hope that maybe one day I won’t have to shave? 

Y’all was supposed to be looking out for me, and instead you just let me suffer, dried my tears, picked me back up and sent me back out into goddamn ground zero because you’d already decided for me. You, Grampa, Knight, everyone.

[MS COLD] So yeah, I’m angry! How the hell else am I supposed to feel about this, Norm?

[AGENT HALTER is silent for eight (8) seconds.]

[AGENT HALTER] You’re right to be angry. Upset. I was trying to be protective. We probably all are, your grampa, Knight.  I think sometimes people like us, we…we think protecting someone from something means not trusting them like adults. It’s demeaning. 

I’m not your dad, I shouldn’t act like it. I don’t need to be overprotective. I’m sorry I kept that from you. 

[MS COLD is silent for six (6) seconds, then exhales and leans on AGENT HALTER’s tank.]

[MS COLD] No, you’re not my dad. I see you more than once a year, and you don’t insist on sending me birthday cards with “TO MY SON” plastered all over them.

[AGENT HALTER’s onboard censoring software redacts profanity. Voice analytics: AGENT HALTER attempted to say ‘asshole’.]

[MS COLD] Yeah, he kinda sucks.

Listen. I don’t…I don’t think I’m ok about this. I genuinely don’t know if there will ever be a point where I am okay about this, but…

I forgive you. Mostly ‘cause this job kinda sucks when I don’t get to gossip with you.

[MS COLD toys with a sticker on AGENT HALTER’s voice synthesizer [PATTERN RECOGNITION INITIALIZED: OPN PRODUCT ID XK001143, “I LOVE MY TRANS DAUGHTER” PRIDE STICKER, MSP 4.99 USD]]

NORM: Aw, Jenny. That means a lot. You don’t even know.

JENNY: So, uh, since we’re talking about it now, what is the ‘ulterior motive’?

NORM: (Hesitates) I don’t mention it because it’s better to have them on our side than not, but it’s true. I said on the helpline that the play is… trying to comprehend an idea we just can’t. 

Enter MANEUS, joining the crowd.

NORM: We think…we think at some point in the past, the King arrived from outside our reality and…killed a god. A god of shepherds, we think. He parasitised the corpse, built his kingdom out of it, molded his corner of the noosphere to make Heaven. The Yellow Circle believe that they’ll join him there one day, shielded from any kind of universal annihilation, and by all accounts that’s true. That’s why the members of the Circle change. 

MANEUS stretches. He pulls up his mask and opens his wineskin, which is empty.

NORM: (Pause) You have to be a corpse worm to survive in a corpse.  

MANEUS regardless stands on a crate.

NORM: Overall, we don’t want to leave Lathe on for more than a few days. Aside from the actual effects on the population at large, everyone suddenly realizing all at once they didn’t dream is a significant veil breach. 

MANEUS: Behold! Hear me, all. I bring news, news from the castle, from the court. News from the court to set your heart ablaze!  

CROWDMEMBER 1: What news?

CROWDMEMBER 2: News from the court? What news could mend our wounds, tale-teller? What stories could soothe our scars? 

NORM: Act 2 is where the real memetic overload comes in. We don't really...know what'll happen if anyone plays it out.

MANEUS: Our Carcosa stands above and alone. Have you heard the news of Cassilda? Of Camilla, and the Stranger?

JENNY: Has he ever tried….anything else? Some kind of, I don't know, adaptation? Stagecraft isn't just for live theatre...

CROWDMEMBER 1: Cassilda, shown her sins in the light of the twin suns. 

NORM: There's been a few movies we had to intervene with. HMES shut down an audio drama version in the 90's. No one's ever gotten this far.

CROWDMEMBER 2: But how? Was it our king, long in exile? 

MANEUS: Indeed, our king. I tell you it was. 

The crowd murmurs.

MANEUS: The usurpers of Carcosa are being shown the Pallid Mask. 

CROWDMEMBER 2: Tell us the tale! Tell us the tale! 

The crowd demands the story.

NORM: I’m just hoping the King in Yellow doesn’t want to get to Act 2. Between you and me, I don’t think we can stop him.

MANEUS: Bring me a drink, for the tale will be long in the telling, and I come from the Mountains of Ziril, from my exile. I am tired, but the Pallid Mask I wear in the name of our king gives me strength. 

ERROR

ERROR

ERROR

OCULUS TRANSCRIPTS COMPROMISED. LITERARY MEMETIC HAZARD DETECTED. TWELVE (12) SUBROUTINES FAILING INFOHAZARD CHECKS.

HAIL THE KING IN YELLOW, THE KING WHOM EMPERORS HAVE SERVED.

ABORT ABORT ABORT